


Detachment

by professorcockblock



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-10
Updated: 2011-12-10
Packaged: 2017-10-27 03:42:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/291252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/professorcockblock/pseuds/professorcockblock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world shifted and Remus Lupin ran.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> Another character study of lostyears!Remus because apparently I have a problem. Written for Noor, because she bullied me into writing and now has to deal with the consequences.

He ran when they told him. The world shifted and he ran. He ran until the cartilage in his knees howled and bone ground against bone, until vision blurred and muscles burned and fingernails drew blood in clenched fists. The world shifted and he kept on running. He ran until he wore out all the fictions and falsehoods holding him together. Until his seams burst and words lost all meaning, transforming rage and betrayal and guilt and disgust into weapons to converge and consume him. The world shifted and he found himself in a new equilibrium of violent remorse.

He supposes he never stopped, not really. He still feels the burn of the chase, the biting threat of his past forcing him onwards. The impulse to flee pumps blood through his veins, and sadness becomes a word for other people, though he knows he has earned it. He runs from it still, keeps it at bay with a ceasless sprint that blinkers him to all else. It's the constancy of an anger and regret so strong that reality becomes the repulsion of his own existence. He cannot stop, cannot look back, cannot allow himself to consider that perhaps he started running long before the world fractured.

He remembers the year that he and Sirius caught fire. They were so lost in each other and schoolboy discovery that everything else fell into sepia tones, browns and browns and browns of reality. James had been occupied with Lily, and Peter had been, well, Peter, and everything was Sirius. They grew-up then. Hogwarts ended and life was thrown into a new vision of sharp relief. It was like apparating, closing your eyes in one place only to open them somehwhere completely new, with all the wind knocked out of you. But they clung tight to each other with desperate hands and frantic affirmations. James continued to be occupied with Lily, Peter continued to be Peter, and everything continued to be Sirius. And then autumn had settled on the season of _them_ and all the leaves had fallen from the trees. The sky was awash with reds and burned oranges and Sirius was red and burned too. It was all Remus could do to keep the charms up, to keep the magic around them, surrounding them, within them. It was all he could do to whisper incoherent avowals of love, worships between obscenities, as darkness seeped in at the sides to envelop them and Sirius bucked against him in the starlight. Quietly, slowly, almost imperceptibly, the world grew. Space expanded and words were lost in a war of action and inaction. Night fell and the darkness grew darker. The gaps between them swelled and sighed, grew big enough for foreign bodies to spring up there. Remus was surprised at first to recognise doubt in the place where his hand used to curl around Sirius’ hip; skin met skin met suspicion.  
And this, Remus knows, is where he started running. This is where collapsed escape became a way of life. This is the unbearable truth that he runs from, that keep his legs moving and feet pounding against cracked glass. He cannot stop, cannot look back. He remembers the year he and Sirius caught fire, and he runs a little harder.


End file.
